It appears the export ban on the F-22A Raptor will be lifted.
Potential customers include Japan… and Korea.
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F-22 export ban to be lifted
This entry was written by Robert Koehler, posted on July 3, 2006 at 5:11 pm, filed under East and Central Asia, Japan, South Korea. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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10 Comments
At more than $350 million each (GAO assessment) I don’t see the ROK buying any. And as the F-22 is approved for allies is the JSF (F-35) now dead?
I don’t see the ROK buying any either, unless the US is foolish enough to spring for the tech transfer and local mfg. input that the Koreans would insist on.
I would hope the US would never let the teach and manufacturing info into either Japan or Korea with the potential for N. Korean operatives to get their hands on the information being what it is.
For the moment, you should change will to could. There isn’t anything definitive yet and Jane’s was echoing another WaPo article about some congressman (I think they were from districts where the aircraft is being assembled, natch) pushing for the lifting of foreign sales restrictions. About the price of the F-22, it isn’t 350 million USD per plane, then again it is. Japan and South Korea if they were to purchase them will likely pay between 130+ million USD per aircraft. The 350 million USD cost per unit that the GAO published is unit cost + sunk developement costs to the tune of several billion dollars which cannot be recovered. Uncle Sam spends billions of taxpayer dollars in developing the technology for the plane, passes it on to defense contractors who then turn around and sell the finished product back to the government at a profit no less. It takes enormous cajones of steel to call yourself a free market private industry.
Why on Earth would you be worried about North Korean operatives getting their hands on the manufacturing techniques for the F-22? They use burros to drag aircraft out to the flight line, for goodness’ sake.
Does anyone know what the investigation into the accident from the jet from Daegu airbase found? Was it mechanical error or human error? And how did it affect the proposed plan of South Korea to buy 44? of those same units over the next couple of years?
Unofficially I heard it was pilot error on the F-15K. Pulled a Kennedy (i.e. lost the horizon) and augured in. Don’t hold your breath waiting for ROKAF to blame their star pilot, though. They’ll probably put their order for 20 more on hold permanently for face reasons, which means they’ll have to make it up with something else, like F-22s.
Yes, these will be offered for about $140 million each, which is the marginal cost to build one plus some profit (no matter what you say, Jing, these guys have to make money).
For the F-35, the Koreans missed their window of opportunity to get these for their next gen fighter (could be done yet if they extend their timeline past 2014).
At $140 million each, throw in the all the technology, build them here, and permit export I reckon the Koreans might negotiate for a few years to buy two.
They managed to get their hands on the plans for Japans missile defense system, it’s entirely possible they could get their hans on the plans for any new planes just as well.
Perhaps N. Korea doesn’t have the money to make a plan even if it has the plans, but it could search for a weakness, or even sell the plans to another country.
The accident was spatial disorder. Once the black box is recovered the ultimate face loosing exercise will begin. The media in its infinite stupidity blame the boys over at Boeing for slapping on GE pushers when indeed the ROKAF went with GE to stay consistent with their F-16’s. The Koreans can barely handle yanking and banking the F-15K. Don’t think for a moment they could handle anything faster. The Koreans need a multi purpose fighter bomber, not a bird to dogfight in. The Euro-fighter was more maneuverable than the F-15K but could not host U.S. based weapons or have the capacity to carry enough for the ROK mission.